4 ms·
I don’t know the specifics of this particular setup, but aren’t pressure vessels usually tested hydrostatically. Water, for example, can be pressurised without
by TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
I don’t know the specifics of this particular setup, but aren’t pressure vessels usually tested hydrostatically.
Water, for example, can be pressurised without actually compressing, and therefore doesn’t undergo rapid expansion when a failure occurs.
There may be reason that precluded pressure testing with a fluid tough.
- AWildC182 7y agoCompared to the fuels that the vessel is designed to carry, water might as well be liquid lead. It would easily crush the structure before you got enough in there to do hydro testing. Edit: correction, looks like they're using methane/LOX. Methane is 422g/L and LOX is 1141g/L (compared to water at 1000g/L). If it was the LOX tank then they could have probably hydro tested it. Not so much with the CH4 which is probably the upper tank? It also bears mentioning that they would want to test at the appropriate temperatures. Water isn't great for hydro testing at LOX/liquid CH4 temps.
- m0zg 7y agoHow do you "hydro" test it at cryogenic temperatures, where physical properties of the vessel material are markedly different?
- elihu 7y agoMaybe weight? Filling something that big with water would be very heavy; maybe it's not strong enough in all the right places to support that much mass.
- JshWright 7y agoWater is lighter than liquid oxygen (which is what this tank would be holding in "production"). For the purposes of this test, they were likely using liquid nitrogen, which has ~80% the mass of water.